learning to speak "standard"

[Bradley A. Esparza]

I have a "gay voice", but was told early on it's 'who I am' as opposed to
'what I am' by a libertarian mother. Where linguistics meets the
metaphysical, maybe.

I can't help but think of all the actors with distinctive "voices", like
Wallace Shawn or Carol Kane.

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> The poor guy! He must feel the way I feel about "ackin uh nigguh" in
> front of white folk! If I wasn't sitting here, comfortably invisible
> at home, I would never be able to be relaxed and my real self on the
> board. If I were with y'all in the flesh, I couldn't  act any way but
> "standard," except *perhaps* with Larry and the two Geoffs, whom I've
> known for years, but haven't seen in years.
>
> Unfortunately, I have nothing to offer beyond what arnold has
> suggested. Years ago, I knew a speech therapist who had gone into
> linguistics. She met my roommate and, as soon as it was discreetly
> possible, she told me that he had a lateral lisp, familiar to all as
> the distinctive feature of the speech of Daffy Duck. I was much
> impressed, since I hadn't, and still haven't, heard anything
> Daffy-like in my friend's speech. So, either (some) speech therapists
> are really very good or she was just jiving me.
>
> In my case, I had plenty of clues at a very early age that I didn't
> talk "proper" and was lucky enough to be able to do something about
> it. So, not only do I not sound like a black East Texan, I *can't*
> sound like one, having avoided that style of speech all of my life. I
> can give examples, but I can't conversate.
>
> Because there are so few black Catholics, only about 700,000 in the
> 'Forties, *all* of my teachers have been white, so that, even in my
> all-black grade school, I had the example of my teachers to follow.
> But I never understood the point that Sister Claire Marie was trying
> to make WRT "Ten" versus "tin." She may as well have been trying to
> make us distinguish between "leak" and "leek."
>
> A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 2/28/08, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> >  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >
> > Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> >
> > Subject:      Re: learning to speak "standard"
> >
>  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > On Feb 28, 2008, at 7:30 AM, Ron Butters wrote, in response to:
> >
> >
> >  In a message dated 2/27/08 10:53:07 PM, hwgray at GMAIL.COM writes:
> >
> >  > The claim that mastering standard English as a teenager is a struggle
> >  > is the one that's unreal. All that's necessary is the motivation and
> >  > the opportunity,
> >
> >
> > RB:
> >
> >
> >  > Motivation is a tricky thing, as we know from the earliest
> >  > sociolinguistic
> >  > studies (as well as from experience). Among adolescents, the choice
> >  > can mean
> >  > that one opts for being (or is psychologically driven to being) a
> >  > "lame" in the
> >  > classical Labovian sense. And there are things that are below the
> >  > level of
> >
> > > consciousness, too...
> >
> >  [anecdotes follow]
> >
> >  let me throw sexual orientation into the mix.  i've been corresponding
> >  with a college student who describes himself as tortured by his gay
> >  voice (so he's certainly motivated to learn to "talk straight"), and
> >  who asked about speech therapists in his area, or even (omigod)
> >  surgery.  i explained that there was almost surely no anatomical
> >  source for his speech style, and that perhaps -- big perhaps --
> >  therapists who dealt with "accent reduction" might be helpful.  (i
> >  also forwarded to him a piece by ben munson, at umn, on pathology vs.
> >  social indexing, written for speech-language-pathology folks rather
> >  than for the general public.)
> >
> >  does anyone here know anything about accent reduction programs?  are
> >  they, or at least some of them, effective in teaching speakers of
> >  english as a foreign language to reduce their foreign accents, or in
> >  teaching native speakers to code-switch?
> >
> >  arnold, who knows almost nothing about this world
> >
> >
> >  ------------------------------------------------------------
> >  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
>                                              -Sam'l Clemens
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
Bradley A. Esparza

"You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think." Dorothy
Parker, when asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org